Get help improving your financial operations and decision making ability without hiring additional staff. If you’d like streamlined processes, improved cash flow and a dynamic accounting system with real time reports and meaningful metrics – all on an integrated platform, our seasoned team of professionals can help you to meet your operational needs. Consultance takes care of all of your bookkeeping and accounting needs, so you can focus on managing your organization.

Who does the Accounting for your business? Based on my experience, many small businesses and not-for-profit organizations have someone internal perform this work when first starting out, since these organizations are focused initially on getting their primary operations up and running, “wearing all the hats” in the early years. However, over the past decade, more businesses and not-for-profits are realizing the advantages of outsourcing their bookkeeping and accounting needs. You should understand this trend as well, as it could lead to your organization’s successful future growth.

Whether it’s technology, the regulatory environment, or your customers’/clients’/members’ needs and preferences, the world in which we live rapidly changes and we all need to adapt to this fast pace. As you ponder the types of changes you need to ensure the success of your organization in the future, outsourcing your bookkeeping and accounting needs to a virtual accounting services provider should be part of that consideration.

In this article, I’ll provide Answers to some Frequently-Asked Questions about Outsourced Virtual Accounting, and demystify the process.

What exactly does it mean to virtually outsource my practice’s bookkeeping and accounting?
This means assigning to an outside professional(s) the responsibility for tasks normally assigned to a controller and chief financial officer within your business – a lot of times, this is you at the start of your business. Tasks include finance and accounting services, such as cash flow management, general ledger management and financial statement preparation and analysis. It also includes all related back-office support, such as payroll processing and tax filings, sales inventory management, accounts payables and receivables and other transaction processing. While you may choose to outsource only portions of your operations, such as the payroll processing, many business owners take advantage of more full-scoped outsourcing in order to gain additional efficiencies.

When you outsource your bookkeeping and accounting tasks to a virtual accounting firm, the firm will use technology to provide your services, without you having to provide physical office space. The firm can fetch, send and store your documents electronically. For example, your virtual accountant can set up automated workflows so that source documents such as your bank statements can be retrieved automatically each month, without you having to be involved in that administrative process. The firm uses applications, often cloud-based apps, to process and record your transactions, resulting in increased cost efficiencies due to automation and integration. You the business owner maintain control and 24/7 access to your data.

What are the advantages of outsourcing?

Easy Access to Specialized Knowledge: When hiring an outside, accounting services provider, you are able to tap into their specialized knowledge and insights gained from having worked with many other businesses. So instead of you personally having to learn and keep up with the latest technology to help you run your back office, you can rely on your outsourced professional to ensure you’re using the most proven cost-effective ways to process your transactions.

Free Up Your Valuable Time and Money: As you grow, by outsourcing your accounting, your practice will no longer have to endure the hiring process and lose valuable time and money training bookkeepers. And, by hiring a virtual firm, you’ll free up valuable space in your office and save on related overhead costs, including expensive employee benefits. Or, if you have been doing the accounting yourself, you can finally free up your time to focus on things more important to you and your business and avoid costly mistakes that occur when you’re spread too thin across too many responsibilities.

Improve Internal Controls: Partnering with an independent professional provider to perform your bookkeeping and accounting allows you to implement a separation of duties across important financial transactions, so that they are not handled by just one person. This helps strengthen your internal controls through proper checks and balances, preventing costly mistakes, including potential fraud. You also gain a second set of eyes to review your business for blind spots in its accounting operations. See myarticlefor more details.

Still on the fence? Then consider this 2018 Client Accounting Services Survey. According to the survey results, businesses that outsource all accounting report both hard and soft returns on their investment, including higher profits and revenues, being better armed to make business decisions, and enjoying an easier accounting experience. Survey results include:

80% of respondents answered that Client Accounting Services (CAS) gave them more time to focus on the business.

68% said that CAS makes accounting easier and efficient.

Respondents who outsourced their CAS reported a greater increase in profit and revenue than those who do not outsource. Almost one-quarter of those outsourcing worked with their accountant to create a plan for growth, further paving the path for long-term success.

Businesses open to new accounting technologies (most often introduced by their accountant) are twice as likely to report a higher profit than those who do not.

What are the downsides to outsourced accounting?
One big downside to outsourcing would be if your service provider doesn’t bring the value you’re looking for. To avoid this risk, I recommend doing a little bit of planning before you reach out to any firms. This includes identifying your accounting needs; for example, whether you need help with bank and credit card reconciliations, inventory management, sales and use taxes, accounts payable, etc. You should also identify your biggest “pain points” and the places where you spend a lot time processing transactions.

With the same diligence you’d invest when hiring full-time staff in your organization, you should be prepared to interview prospective firms to understand their client service model and approach, and the pricing structure for their services. Once hired, regular communications with your service provider facilitates a strong client/service provider relationship, resulting in high quality client service.

Will I lose control over my finances if I outsource?
The short answer is “No.” You will actually now have more control since you will have improved financials at your fingertips and have more time and money to plan instead of simply reacting to business events. What you’re delegating to your outsourced accountant is the heavy lifting related to processing and recording of the transactions. Professional accounting firms are able to leverage their experience and knowledge of technology to make these transactional processes more efficient and accurate, leaving them time to provide you with sound business advice as you make important financial decisions. You’ll have more accurate and timely financial information and an expert’s analysis of that information, while you retain the oversight and control and decision-making.

When is the best time to consider the transition to an outsourced model?
While every practice is different, here are some clues as to when it may be a good time to move your bookkeeping and accounting to an outsourced, virtual professional firm:

You find yourself spending more time on your back-office functions than on customer/client-facing services and growing your business.

You’re encountering too many mistakes because you and your current staff are spread too thin.

You’d like to pursue efficiencies through the use of accounting technology but don’t know how and where to start.

You’re drowning in a mound of paperwork and having a hard time keeping up with paying the bills, reconciling your bank and credit card accounts, or other back-office functions.

How can I find out more about outsourcing? If you still have questions and/or would like to understand more about outsourced bookkeeping and accounting services, please reach out to me. I’ll be happy to talk with you. Orin Schepps, Founder and CEO @consultanceaccounting http://www.consultancellc.com

Have you heard the expression, a fish can’t see the water it’s in? Fish are surrounded by water, making them blind to its existence. Likewise, nonprofit executives and business owners can become blind to their everyday situations as well. These blind spots may become an unchanging fact of life that can hurt your organization’s ability to grow and prosper – unless you give yourself the appropriate “nudge” to see outside of your comfort zone.

So, how can you see more clearly? A second set of eyes can help your business or nonprofit operate at its best. When it comes to your back office operations, a review by a reputable Accounting firm can be the difference between a “floundering” and a successful organization.

Why Have Someone Else Involved?
Your business/nonprofit needs to adapt as it matures. At first you may need minimal fine tuning of core workflows as you learn what does and doesn’t work. Later, you’ll likely require a more significant reengineering of your accounting operations and systems as you takes on more clients, customers, members, and/or service and product offerings. You alone may find it hard to see the changes needed because you are too close to the day to day activities and more focused elsewhere. While you keep up with the latest ways to enhance customer/client service, an accounting expert is focused on knowing how innovative accounting technology can improve your back office functions, both in terms of efficiencies as well as security measures. As a second set of eyes, we can work with you to understand steps in your workflows and the value each step brings, culling out outdated and unnecessary procedures which waste time.

What Are the Benefits?
Having a competent, professional accountant can make a big difference to your organization’s success, as he/she can help you:
• Review your Profitability and Gross Margin for opportunities to increase your bottom line
• Identify operational efficiencies through enhanced work flows, saving you time and money and increasing collaboration in your office
• Integrate and automate systems to minimize data entry and errors
• Clarify and streamline yourStandard Operating Procedures to help you scale up as you grow
• Identify stronger internal controls to protect your assets and enable more timely and accurate financial information to make better business decisions
• Move to a paperless environment to increase mobility

What Are the Areas Where a Second Look Would Be Helpful?
An example of where a second set of eyes can be extremely valuable is in your use of technology. An accounting technology expert can assess your payables, receivables, payroll and financial management functions to see what’s working well and what can be improved upon. This assessment will include a review of how integrated all of your systems are to achieve maximum efficiency. Given that technology is constantly changing, a regular assessment is prudent; your accounting expert can advise you if there are better solutions out there than your current system(s), and on the best fit for your practice. Accounting technology firms work in this space on a daily basis and have their fingers on the pulse of existing solutions, including hands-on testing of various apps, so they can advise you accordingly.

Having an independent review of your practice can help you realize efficiencies you didn’t know were possible. Become a fish out of water; Open your eyes to new, previously unseen possibilities!

How Consultance Accounting can help:Consultanceleverages exceptional talent, proven processes, and top technology platforms to deliver timely & accurate financial solutions that help small and medium-sized organizations improve productivity, increase profitability, and achieve their goals. We use cloud-based technologies that integrate with each other to streamline the process. Contact Us if you have questions and/or need more assistance.

Imagine serving your customers, clients and/or members without standardized processes to maximize their experiences. For example, if you run an trade association or not for profit organization, imagine if there was no clear and consistent way of handling your annual meetings or other regular events – from attendee registration, booking speakers, logistics management during the event, and all the way through to getting feedback after the event – your constituents would likely be dissatisfied, as well as you and your office staff. Standardization provides the means for ensuring thorough and complete customer experience in an efficient manner.

The same goes for your Accounting processes. When your business or organization is small, you might start out by handling your accounts receivable, supplier/vendor disbursements, payroll and financial reports in a ad hoc fashion. However, just as inconsistent delivery of the customer experience can wreak havoc to your business, so can lack of standardization with your bookkeeping and accounting. Standardizing your Accounting processes helps you to avoid costly mistakes that could potentially ruin your business’ reputation.

Here are some Benefits of Standardizing your Accounting Processes:

Reduce Your Risk of Errors: Having a standard operating procedure for how you handle money coming in and going out of your business is very important. Standardizing your payment processes using a technology solution not only makes them more efficient, but also reduces mistakes made by manual data entry. Controls embedded in the automated system and e-payments help to reduce fraud. For example, with a bill-pay solution like Bill.com, you can eliminate your paper bills and have suppliers remit bills electronically to your dedicated Bill.com email account. From there, Bill.com helps your bookkeeper ensure the proper account coding and payment dates, and automates the approval and payment processes, making it easy for you to have accurate real-time, even when you are away from the office.

Bill.com syncs directly with systems such as QuickBooks, so that you don’t have to manually re-enter data into your accounting system. The paperless environment facilitated by this standard bill pay process helps you avoid accidentally paying duplicate or incorrect amounts. It also helps manage your cash flow by scheduling e-payments so that they are disbursed at just the right time. With more accurate, real-time financial information at your fingertips, you’ll avoid making bad decisions based on faulty data.

Allow You to Focus on Value-Added Services: With standard and automated Accounting processes, handling high volumes of transactions becomes more efficient. You’ll spend less time on your back-office administrative functions and more time devoted to your customer’s experience. What can be better than that?

Facilitate Business Continuity: Once you standardize and document your procedures in writing, it allows you to cross-train others to do the work, avoiding disruptions when the person who normally handles the process is on vacation. For example, processing payroll can be a detailed and tedious process. If done incorrectly, it can significantly impact your staff’s morale and trust in the system. Regardless of whether you use an outsourced payroll service, you still want to ensure the proper service provider hand-offs and correct payroll entries are understood clearly to avoid unnecessary mistakes that take precious time to research and correct.

Promote Continuous Improvement: When you’ve done establishing standard processes, it’s good to revisit and improve upon them based on feedback from your staff and other relevant parties (e.g., suppliers). Circumstances change over time and what may be ideal today may not be next year, so be sure to think of this an ongoing best practice; It doesn’t necessarily require large amounts of time to do in future iterations, and may identify additional efficiencies and controls for your practice.

How to Start?
To begin improving your operational efficiency, focus on any standardizing processes that involve handling a high volume of transactions on a frequent basis. What are those areas that you and your staff spend the most time in, but ultimately deliver lower value to your customers? Delve into these processes and assess each step and its relevant value: Is there a way to automate the step? Is the step even necessary? Are there too many handoffs? Is the information stored in a way that promotes efficiency? [See Three Tips for Effective Sales Inventory Management, for guidance on improving this process.)

If you’re having trouble figuring out what’s the best way to standardize your process, don’t be afraid to ask others and gather lessons learned from their experiences. Although an investment in time, doing this assessment and making any needed changes will benefit your business in the long run. As you grow, an outside professional firm may be your best option, as they are in the business of providing effective and efficient bookkeeping and accounting services.

In sum, consumers expect consistent product and service experiences, and your clients, customers, and/or members are no exception. Standardize not only your customer-facing processes, but also your back-office Accounting function. Making those processes more efficient allows you to focus on what matters most in your practice.

How Consultance Accounting can help:Consultanceleverages exceptional talent, proven processes, and top technology platforms to deliver timely & accurate financial solutions that help small and medium-sized organizations improve productivity, increase profitability, and achieve their goals. We use cloud-based technologies that integrate with each other to streamline the process. Contact Us if you have questions and/or need more assistance.

ThreeKey Reasons to Love Your Accountant

Valentine’s Day is this week! Your accountant is probably not the first person you think of on February 14th, but in honor of this holiday, I give you three key reasons to love your accountant:

We enable you to make better business decisions and focus on what matters most.
If you are doing your own bookkeeping and accounting, you may be feeling the strain of wearing too many hats in your business or not-for-profit organization. Delegating your accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll and other accounting processes to a competent accountant allows you to focus on your customers, clients and/or members. While you get back to doing what you love, your accounting professional helps you understand key performance measures, such as your most and least profitable lines of business, your return on investment from fundraising efforts, and/or the best pricing levels for your products and services to maximize your profit margins.

We standardize and streamline your back office functions.
Your accountant understands your workflows and through standardization, can significantly reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes. By consistent handling of your back office operations, your accounting professional helps your business or organization to run more efficiently.

We understand how technology can increase your productivity and security.
While you focus on keeping up with the latest ways to enhance services for your customers, clients and/or members, your accountant is focused on knowing how innovative accounting technology can improve your back office functions, both in terms of efficiencies as well as security measures. Your accounting professional can implement cloud-based technology in your office, so that you can experience the benefits of automation, integration, collaboration and mobility.

Having a competent, professional accountant can make a big difference to your business or not-for-profit organization’s success. If you currently don’t have an accountant and/or are not experiencing the above benefits, contact us; I’d be happy to discuss ways to enhance your business practices through innovative accounting solutions.

Choosing which version of QuickBooks is right for you can sometimes be unclear. Up until recently, the choice was obvious and QuickBooks Desktop was easily the best version of QuickBooks. However, over the past 2-3 years Intuit, the developer of both, has made QuickBooks Online considerably more dynamic and more focus is being spent on this cloud version. So, while QuickBooks Desktop is still a great product and might still meet your needs for the foreseeable future, I’m going to point out some of the advantages of moving to the online version of QuickBooks.

Capture receipts on your phone – Snap a photo of your receipt and easily attach it to any transaction using the QuickBooks mobile app.

Access on a PC and mobile device– With QuickBooks Online, you and your team can access the books anytime, anywhere.

Automatic, real-time updates – As you make changes to your data, QuickBooks Online updates automatically. Whether there is one person in the QuickBooks file or multiple users, changes made are updated in real-time.

“What do I mean by concentration? I mean focusing totally on the business at hand and commanding your body to do exactly what you want it to do.” Arnold Palmer

If I asked the leaders of nonprofit organizations and associations, as well as business owners, how much time they spent on their true business at hand, or the things that matter most, I’d venture to say that most of them would say “not enough.”

When I bring new clients on board, I find that many of them spend a lot of time shifting through mounds of paper, trying to stay on top of vendor bills and payments and other administrative activities. By outsourcing their back office functions to Consultance Accounting and switching to Bill.com, an automated bill payment solution, organizations can focus on what matters most, and let us handle their bookkeeping and accounting needs.

As a cloud-based firm that provides outsourced accounting services to clients across the country, Consultance Accounting leverages the use of top technology platforms, such as Bill.com, to streamline our clients’ operations. Bill.com is a bill payment solution that integrates with QuickBooks Online and other accounting systems. Bill.com outlines Ten Reasons to Outsource (and Upgrade) Your Bill Payment. Here’s my take on some of the key points they discuss:

Get Rid of Paper Hassles: Have you heard of that tip about handling a piece of paper only once to increase your efficiency? With an automated bill pay solution, you can take that tip to the next level by eliminating those pieces of paper entirely! Here’s how it works for our clients’ Accounts Payable processes: We work with clients and their vendors to eliminate all paper bills, so instead, they are electronically remitted directly to a dedicated Bill.com email account. From there, our accounting specialists ensure the proper account coding and payment dates, and the Bill.com system will automatically forward the on-line bills to the appropriate people for approval. All the supporting documents are stored securely on-line, leaving you with a paper-less work environment.

Enhance Your Mobility: Do you ever feel like your handcuffed to your desk due to all the administrative work you have to handle? By outsourcing your accounting function and using Bill.com, you can free yourself from your physical office space and conduct business anywhere using your mobile device(s). This occurs for multiple reasons. First, you eliminate the need for an in-house bookkeeper to handle your accounting transactions, which saves you the time in the office managing that employee. Second, your vendor and payment data is easily accessible on your mobile device(s). As a business owner who is always on the move, I can personally attest to how easy it is to access my vendor invoices using my smart phone. For example, if a vendor calls me up and asks about a payment, I can easily pull up the Bill.com app on my smart phone, review the vendor’s information, and approve a payment on the spot. It’s that simple.

Experience Financial Savings: In addition to helping you reprioritize your precious time, it’s important to note the opportunity to save money too. By outsourcing your back-office functions to an accounting services firm, you can reduce your employee-related overhead costs (e.g., training, office space, benefits, etc.). By using a bill payment solution like Bill.com, you can save by transitioning your paper checks to electronic payments. Bill.com estimates that the total yearly cost for paper checks can be $24,540, as compared to total yearly cost for electronic payments of $1,680. Click here for more info.

Summary: If you’re like most business owners and leaders of nonprofit organizations, you take great pride in the services or products you provide. You want to focus your time and energy on business strategy and goals. Outsourcing your back-office functions to a dedicated, highly-skilled accounting services firm that uses proven technology apps to streamline your workflows allows you to do exactly that.

So, are you ready to concentrate like Arnold Palmer? Whether it’s serving your customers, fundraising for future growth, or expanding your reach in the community, Consultance Accounting in partnership with Bill.com can help you save valuable time, reduce operating costs and gain peace of mind that you’re focused on what matters most. Contact Usif you’d like to learn more.